TEN CITIES, brought to you by the Goethe-Institut, is a journey of musicians and writers. It is musical research project that brings together 50 DJs, producers and musicians from the ten cities (BERLIN BRISTOL CAIRO JOHANNESBURG KYIV LAGOS LISBON LUANDA NAIROBI NAPLES…& EVENTUALLY WORLDWIDE), enabling them to cooperate and produce music together. Guided by ten local curators in each city who have chosen the participants, together with a central curatorial group in Berlin and Nairobi. Intensive work periods by the participating musicians in the ten cities will form the central stages of the project, accompanied by concerts and parties. Just another reason for a party? Not exactly.

Ten Cities – Where the Literary Meets Beats

At the same time, using club cultures as a basis to explore and investigate a crucial notion of political theory: the public sphere – from a different perspective than the usual, laboratory-based research tradition and in a serial, intercultural approach, 20 authors, all from the city they are writing about, will tell us the history of club music in those ten cities, and the history of the public spheres that have been formed around club music for the last 50 years (The breakdown of the Kyiv event is particularly interesting given current events…). The project will culminate in putting out produced tracks in both analogue & digital formats, whereby the results of the research project will be published in a publication. More content will be published on the Ten Cities site, among others: city portraits by our musical curators, free downloads, mix tapes, photography and visual content. In addition, we will screen film series with a selection of documentaries and feature films on club culture in different parts of the world, in most cities, in cooperation with the local Goethe-Instituts.